[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #7916: Automatically save cutlist during editing

Jim Stichnoth stichnot at gmail.com
Tue Jan 19 00:35:21 UTC 2010


On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> On 01/18/2010 06:25 PM, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>
>>> On 01/15/2010 11:40 PM, MythTV wrote:
>>>
>>>> #7916: Automatically save cutlist during editing
>>>>
>>>>  All too frequently, my frontend hangs while editing a cutlist and all my
>>>>  edits are lost.  (This can be easily tested by killing the mythfrontend
>>>>  process while editing and then trying to resume editing.)  This patch
>>>>  saves all editing changes as they are made.
>>> Jim, what would you think of a manually-invoked "save without exiting"
>>> action in the SELECT menu as well as a nice keybinding for SAVE.  The
>>> thought of automatically-saved cutlists worries me (as just hitting Z in
>>> the editor would all of a sudden make a real cutlist and a user
>>> accidentally cutting out all but some tiny portion of the show would
>>> have to become familiar with mythcommflag --clearcutlist and/or we'd
>>> need to have a "Clear Cutlist" action in the Watch Recordings menu or ...).
>>>
>>> I /very/ much like the idea of "save without exiting"--it's just the
>>> "automatically" part that worries me.
>>>
>> Speaking selfishly, I wouldn't like it as much.  I can't predict when
>> my editing will cause the machine to hang (if I could, I would fix
>> it), so I would have to get into the habit of save-without-exiting
>> after each separate edit.  Admittedly, a keybinding would help a lot.
>>
>> Your example is equally a problem today, since (unless I missed it)
>> there is no "exit without saving" option.  I could go on, but
>> everything derives from this point.
>>
>
> Well, that's what CLEARMAP (C, Q, Home) (to clear the cut list) is for.
> Sure, you could say, "But if the user hits CLEARMAP, the changes are
> saved immediately, so  whether we're saving immediately or not, they can
> clear the map before editing and when they leave they have a cleared
> cutlist."
>
> However, this whole patch is a workaround for a different problem (that
> really should be fixed)--your frontend is hanging/crashing during
> editing.  So, if the user hits LOADCOMMSKIP (Z, End) and /before/
> hitting CLEARMAP the frontend hangs/crashes, they may have broken their
> recording.
>
> Or, worse, if they've entered and set a "Delete after this point"
> cutpoint at the beginning and before setting the "Delete before this
> point" cutpoint, the frontend hangs/locks, they have an unplayable
> recording (that they can't even get into to edit).
>
> That said, an "Exit without saving" may not be a bad thing--my only
> concern is whether it's making the menu too long/actually making it
> harder to use than without the option.

Note that in this discussion, if edits are automatically saved as they
are made, then the impact of the frontend hanging/crashing is the same
as the user accidentally pressing exit.  That is, all the bad
scenarios that could happen if edits were auto-saved could also happen
if exit were pressed.  In fact, if an inexperienced user accidentally
edits a program and accidentally winds up in one of these bad states,
they are likely to exit out which will anyway save their changes.  So
I think your arguments are more about a higher-level need for a "Clear
cutlist" action.

(By the way, when my frontend hangs during editing and I eventually
manage to get back to editing, I'm presented with this tantalizing
"Continue editing?" dialog, to which I eagerly reply Yes, but then my
hopes are dashed as I'm presented with an empty cutlist.  D'oh!)

I agree that I'd rather find and fix the hanging frontend problem (the
whole machine hanging, not the mythfrontend process), and it's clearly
not a widespread problem based on zero response to my recent query
(http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/418159#418159).

Jim


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